


The Surreptitious Stairwell Assignation

by Berty



Series: A Fit Of Fashion [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Disguised Sherlock Holmes, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, It's For a Case, John Missed Sherlock, M/M, Office Blow Jobs, Reunion Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Sherlock missed John, Sherlock wearing glasses, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 17:54:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19408369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Berty/pseuds/Berty
Summary: It's been three weeks and four days, and John has missed making tea that doesn't get drunk and being called an idiot.





	The Surreptitious Stairwell Assignation

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it's another Let's Dress Up Sherlock fic. One more to come after this one I think. As always, this is dedicated to 88thParallel who has been having a crappy time lately. Hope you're feeling stronger soon, Sweetheart. But also to the Sherlock fans who allow me to play in their street so sporadically, but who always welcome me back when I have something to share. And always, Pepe and Salads. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has commented and kudos'd on this series of silliness. You guys make me smile.

If John had to shake one more idiot’s hand, he wasn’t going to be held responsible for his subsequent breakdown. An assault charge would be a small price to pay if it meant he could stop pretending to be Mike Baker from the San Francisco office and resume his role as John Watson, doctor, former British Army Captain and boyfriend of the man who was currently undercover somewhere in this dreadful, depressing office in Slough.

“… and this is Carla Lloyd. She’s one of our website designers. Carla, this is Mike Baker from the San Francisco office. He’s here to oversee the new Swordfish Telecoms project until it goes live,” John’s guide said, still smiling despite the fact that he’d made this particular speech about twenty-five times already this morning.

“Hi! Nice to meet you,” John said, dredging up a smile from somewhere and feeling his soul die a little more in the process.

“You’re British,” Carla exclaimed. “Had enough of Uncle Sam for a bit, have you?”

John chuckled as if nine people hadn’t already made a similar comment. “I missed the chocolate digestives and Marmite,” he admitted, leaning in and giving a conspiratorial smirk.

“But not the rain, I expect,” Carla added.

John just nodded and let himself be herded along a bland, grey-carpeted hallway, nodding goodbye as he was ushered toward the next hand-shaking appointment.

The building had obviously not been built to house offices and from the outside it looked like warehousing or light industrial units. Inside, however, it had been converted into a series of large, open-plan rooms. But no amount of gargantuan potted plants or painted breeze-block walls could cover the fact that the place was a dismal retro-fit, and John had a moment of sympathy for those who spent so many of their waking hours in the strip-lit horror.

“Okay, let’s go and meet the programmers now – these guys are the brains of the company and they are all very focussed on bringing our latest projects to the marketplace, so we mostly just let them get on with it,” Steve smiled as if he’d made a clever quip. “Just be warned; their workspace is rather, uh… individual.”

John waited for Steve to push open the door to the room and then followed him into the gloomiest, most untidy space he’d seen so far. All the windows had their blinds closed and the only light came from the monitor screen glow, a couple of angle-poise lamps and a set of fairy lights in the shape of chilli-peppers draped over a depressed rubber plant. Several heads appeared over the top of their individual screens, some had headphones on, while others just blinked at him. John got the distinct impression he’d seen something similar on a documentary about meerkats once. None of them smiled or tried to shake his hand though, which was a mercy.

“Hi guys, hope we’re not disturbing you,” Steve squawked, doing exactly that. “Just showing Mike around. He’s over from the San Francisco office, here to make sure we get Swordfish up and running on time.” Steve snorted at his own wit, but it was a tough crowd and no one laughed.

“I’m sure you have it all in hand. I’m just here to keep our clients in the loop and to smooth any snags we might come across,” John shrugged, sticking to the script he’d been given.

“Right,” Steve nodded. “Well, this is Andrew, he’s head of development. Then we have Claude, David, Matt, Jo, Kitty and Josh over in the corner there, Dave, Dave, Ray, Rob, Charlie and Will,” he chanted as he turned in a tight clockwise circle, pointing out each programmer in turn. A few of them nodded or raised a hand in greeting, a couple of them avoided eye contact altogether and one or two didn’t seem to have noticed his arrival at all.

And then there was Will.

Sitting bolt upright in his chair, his hands poised over his keyboard, his glasses had slid halfway down his nose. Like most of his colleagues he was dressed casually in jeans and tee shirt with an unbuttoned, unfashionable shirt over the top, swamping him. He had the pale complexion of a man who didn’t voluntarily spend a lot of time outdoors in daylight. His hair was untamed and fluffy, and he only managed a quick nod before his eyes slid away and he began tapping on his keyboard again. He was the embodiment of an intelligent, socially awkward man, unused to making small talk or pretending to be interested in something he clearly wasn’t.

The parallels between the character John faced now and the man he’d first met four years ago were not lost on him. He felt his chest expand with a full breath for the first time in three weeks and four days.

Sherlock.

It took all his strength and a stern word with himself not to leap over the desks and hug the brilliant love of his life, kiss him senseless and scandalise the entire office in the process, to say nothing of blowing his cover out of the water.

“So who’s working on the project now?” John asked the room at large.

“Well, we lost a key member of staff last month, but Will here was moved in from another project and has managed to get us back on track. Dave, Charlie and Kitty are also involved, and we can redeploy more staff as necessary.”

“Okay. It would be good to have a chat at some point if you don’t mind, get myself caught up.”

John and Steve both turned to look at Will, who seemed to be getting more wide-eyed by the moment. He nodded, a jerky movement that conveyed his unwillingness and his agitation.

“Thanks, Will,” Steve called, clapping John on the back and steering him toward the door again. “So, Mike, let’s show you to your office while you’re with us,” he suggested, leading the way out of the room without a chance for John to even glance back at his favourite undercover idiot.

§

Clumsy with desperation, John pushed Sherlock back against the wall harder than he’d intended but it didn’t seem to deter him from matching John’s every kiss, nip and swipe with one of his own. Already John could feel his lips tingling and swelling with the intensity of their kisses. It had been too long since he had held Sherlock in his arms and he was remedying that by stroking, holding and… yes … groping, as much of him as he could reach.

Sherlock hummed softly into a particularly lascivious sweep of John’s tongue and pulled their hips in closer, widening his stance to ensure their groins matched up. John’s hands flew to Sherlock’s hair and neck, taking greedy palmfuls of both and angling his head so he could press deeper and make Sherlock repeat that fucking sexy noise.

Footsteps from the floor above made them lean apart a little. They paused and waited breathlessly until the sound receded, going back the other way. Catching each other’s eyes, they slipped quickly into soft snuffles of supressed laughter, foreheads pressing together and sharing breath as they calmed, their hands holding each other’s waists, not quite able to let go now they finally had each other so close.

“John,” Sherlock breathed, his baritone scratchy and warm, sending a swoop of lust low in John’s belly. He didn’t need to say he’d missed John; it was all in the way he said his name. John could relate; he’d had to live through the exact same seemingly infinite three-week period, waiting to hear that the job was completed, that Sherlock had the information he’d gone undercover to look for and was awaiting extraction. John had insisted upon being there for that part; Sherlock had a distressing habit of announcing his deductions in a way that made people want to assault him. Again, John could relate.

Bloody Mycroft and his favours – John was going to have words with him. It might not have been a hazardous job he’d coerced his brother into this time, but it had gone on for much longer than anyone had been prepared for.

John had spent months being single before getting together with Sherlock, intermittent dates aside, but since they had, he had become used to having someone around, and to a regular, healthy sex life. Three weeks didn’t sound like a long time, but John’s libido begged to differ. His left hand, once his most constant and faithful sexual partner, held little appeal since he’d discovered how much more satisfying Sherlock’s hands were, to say nothing of the rest of him.

“Let me look at you,” John murmured, pulling back far enough to run his eyes from Sherlock’s fluffy head to his Converse, lingering over the length of his thighs and the pale expanse of throat revealed by the baggy, over large tee shirt. The poorly fitting, high street clothing was such a different look from Sherlock’s normal sharp style and it somehow made him look about a decade younger, all big, innocent eyes, long fingers and huge feet. John felt a little creepy for being so turned on at Sherlock’s apparent youthfulness, but one look at his face and the shadow of a smirk that played on his boyfriend’s pink lips reassured him that this was indeed the brilliant, mercurial madman he adored – and that Sherlock already knew of John’s attraction. There was no point in trying to hide anything from him.

Sherlock’s gaze warmed even further as John rolled his eyes and huffed his confession.

“Doesn’t this count as workplace harassment, Mike?” Sherlock asked breathily, blinking at him as if John was indeed some skeevy older man, abusing his position and lusting after the prettiest boy in programming.

John narrowed his eyes at Sherlock’s assumed persona. “I’m just not convinced about your recent performance, _Will_. Maybe you can get me up to speed?”

A sharp bark of laughter and several chattering voices stopped them, Sherlock pressing an index finger to John’s lips and lifting his eyes towards where the voices originated.

John listened intently and once he was happy they were in no danger of being discovered, he nipped at the fleshy pad of Sherlock’s fingertip.

Sherlock hissed, scowled and withdrew his finger sharply.

“It’s not the most secluded spot, is it?” John said quietly. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”

“On the contrary, although you can hear quite a lot from other parts of the building, this stairwell is very rarely used. Under here, no one can see us unless they are specifically searching for us.”

John looked around their little hidey-hole and saw that Sherlock was right. Tucked away at the end of the building it was clear that this area was not a regular thoroughfare. Industrial metal stairs led up to the floor above and the space beneath the first turn had become something of a storage or dumping area. Cardboard boxes, folded deck chairs and random pieces of old office furniture had been put here and forgotten it seemed. Unless someone were to bend down and peer through the open bannister or climb past the stacked furniture and stationery boxes as they had done, they were completely hidden from the casual observer.

John just hoped that he would be able to encounter the smell of photocopier paper again without getting a hard-on.

“Maybe so, but sound carries very efficiently,” John muttered as the shrill ringing of a phone was abruptly silenced.

“Then you’d better assess my performance…very… quietly,” Sherlock replied into John’s ear, tugging him back in against his hips.

Their mouths lined up perfectly with Sherlock leaning against the wall and his legs spread wide to accommodate John who was quickly reminded of his half-hard erection when it snugged up against Sherlock’s. They both hummed as the urge to rub and press became too tempting and they began to rock against each other.

“This is a bad idea,” John murmured, but the sentiment was lost in sweep of Sherlock’s big hands down his back and onto his arse.

The extra material of Sherlock’s loose jeans was frustrating. John was used to being able to feel every twitch and flare of his boyfriend’s cock through his perfectly tailored suit trousers. There was too much play in Sherlock’s current attire and John found himself becoming frustrated at the hit and miss nature of the friction between them.

Ripping his lips from Sherlock’s, who was panting very prettily now, John reached down to undo the offending garment. Once again, the material thwarted him, folding and sagging unhelpfully as John tried to work the zip.

“Fucking thing!” John snarled earning him a slurred ‘Shh!’ from Sherlock.

John quickly went to his knees, using both hands now to straighten the fabric enough to lower the zip and expose Sherlock’s bulging boxers, the smooth, rosy crown of his cock already peeking above the waistband.

John dipped hot, shaky fingers inside the damp cotton and pulled him out, overwhelmed for a moment by the familiar, delicious scent of Sherlock. Unable to help himself he pressed his face between Sherlock’s legs and breathed deeply. God, how he’d missed him. It was ridiculous!

Sherlock’s head thumped back against the brick wall as John began to mouth at the root of his cock, kissing the cool skin of his balls and using his tongue to relearn the shape of him.

“John,” he gasped when John lifted his chin and sucked Sherlock into his mouth. He reached down a hand to touch the hinge of John’s jaw and run his thumb against the stretch of John’s lips around him. John bobbed his head over his cock, knowing that Sherlock could feel everything – not only the sensation of John’s lips and tongue and the sweet suction, but how John’s jaw had to work to accommodate him, how John swallowed around him and sipped in shallow breaths when he could.

John hazarded a glance upwards through his lashes to meet Sherlock’s eyes already watching him, hooded and bliss filled. Running a finger below John’s jaw, Sherlock gently encouraged John to tip his head back a little further, stroking his cheek softly as he found the perfect angle to slide a little deeper.

A shudder ran through them both and Sherlock pushed the fingers of his free hand into the short strands of John’s hair, anchoring him in place as he began to thrust lightly in time with John’s rhythm. John hummed approval as his eyes slid shut giving control over to Sherlock who seamlessly took up their pace, his hips rolling and his hands fisting in John’s hair as he chased his completion.

He loved it when Sherlock got like this. Although John teased him for being bossy and pushy in bed, Sherlock was, in fact, rather reticent about asking for what he wanted. It had taken John a long time to persuade him that everything was on the table, sexually speaking. While he hadn’t experienced every pleasure two human bodies could elicit, John was pretty sure he had a broader history to draw on than Sherlock had. It had taken a lot of encouragement, some strategic teasing and the stamina and patience of a saint to finally get Sherlock to trust John enough to take what he needed and to believe that John was as into that as Sherlock was himself. It had affected them both more profoundly that John had realised it would, moved their physical relationship from some very satisfying sex to something deeper and more profound as their trust in each other had grown.

John, on his knees and desperate, felt drunk on the sensation of Sherlock in his mouth, all around him, his hands holding him and making him feel cherished and worthy.

“God, yeah! Yes! Your mouth!” Sherlock groaned in a broken whisper.

John’s hands flew to his own erection, neglected in his desire to reconnect with Sherlock. He unclasped the fastening and unzipped, his cock straining into his hand as John pushed his pants aside. He was already dripping slick at the head, his foreskin retracted and the cool air and his hot hand made him moan a little. He was so close already, just from hearing Sherlock take his pleasure.

“I’ve dreamed of this,” Sherlock told him, his thrusts becoming slower and less co-ordinated. “Your mouth on me. It’s even better than I remembered, John.”

His voice, although little more than a whisper, was wrecked, emotion evident in each word in a way that John had once doubted him capable.

John hummed around Sherlock’s cock while his fist stroked himself faster and faster, close to the head of his cock where the sensations were almost too much to bear. He made a guttural, sobbing sound low in his chest and Sherlock stroked uncoordinated fingers across the skin of John’s cheeks.

“Open… open your eyes, John.”

With a shuddering breath, John did. Sherlock was pink cheeked, his chest heaving and his eyes warm but focussed. His bottom lip caught between his teeth and John found he was overwhelmed all over again. Sherlock was so beautiful like this, all layers and pretences stripped back. And Sherlock must have seen something in John’s gaze too as he stiffened, his eyes blowing wide.

“Oh! Fuck! Ohhhh!” Sherlock sighed, gave three harder thrusts and came, the concentrated flavour of him bursting across John’s palate. He had no hope of swallowing it all with the force that Sherlock pulsed into his mouth, although he tried. But then his own release was on him, his cock jerking in his hand as he came in wracking, straining waves of pleasure.

They slumped into a tangle of limbs and stickiness which neither seemed in any hurry to resolve. Sherlock found the dexterity to angle them so they could kiss and breathe each other’s breaths. Eventually John recalled that he had a handkerchief in his breast pocket which they duly ruined, trying to get the worst of John’s come off Sherlock’s jeans and Sherlock’s come off John’s face and tie. They hissed and giggled, each blaming the other for their terrible aim, gradually calming with soft words and gentle touches.

“You found him then? Mycroft’s mole? The one adding malicious code into the programmes?”

“Mmmm,” Sherlock agreed. “And it was a ‘her’, but I’m ninety-nine per cent certain that she is unaware that she is doing it. I need to report back to Mycroft and let him know that the instructions she is following are coming from elsewhere, disguised in a call routing protocol.”

John’s heart fell at that. “Will you have to follow it back to the source?”

“No, I think I have more than repaid the favour I owed him. I have eliminated one suspect and pinpointed the source of the problem. He can take it from there – even MI6 can’t ruin this.”

“So… are we good to go home?” A clandestine quickie was a marvellous thing, but it didn’t hold a candle to a naked, pliant, happy-to-be-home consulting detective spread out on their bed.

Sherlock rolled his head along the wall, looking at John with sleepy eyes and a sated, sloppy smile. “We are,” he murmured, leaning in to steal one more kiss before John got to his feet and stretched a hand down to help his lanky genius up from the floor.

“Do we need to pick anything up before we go? What about your glasses? I could get used to those. They make you look smart,” John grinned.

Sherlock raised a sardonic eyebrow. “They’re on your desk. We _could_ go back for them, only Mycroft had a tiny microphone built into them so he could monitor the operation.”

John knew Sherlock was trying to scandalise him, and he obliged with his eyes going wide, trying to recall exactly when Sherlock had taken them off and what John had said in the heat of the moment when ‘Will’ had walked into his office and suggested they find somewhere more discrete to greet each other.

“I thought that’s what you’d say,” Sherlock nodded, a smile spreading across his mouth slowly becoming soft as he turned John and nudged him toward the exit. “Time to go home then?”

“Definitely,” John muttered. “There are things I want to do to you that, if we do them here, Mycroft will be able to hear you no matter where your glasses are in the building.”

“Let’s not wait to say goodbye then,” Sherlock replied, pushing past John and holding the door to the car park open for him, his cheeks already beginning to pink again. “Come on, John!”

Fin


End file.
